m1 Mac mini question

[Sagecrumpton]

So I'm considering getting a m1 Mac mini for a somewhat mobile video editing workstation. I was going to get the model with 16 GB of RAM and the 256 GB SSD. The question I have is it possible to boot the m1 Mac mini off a external HDD specifically a 4 TB m.2 in a thunderbolt 4 enclosure. My main reason for wanting to do this is because on my previous mobile workstation a 2015 MacBook pro RIP. I have gone through 3 SSDs as I write about 12-16 terabytes a month and with the new Mac mini there isn't the option to just swap out the drive. so what I was hoping to do was to just bypass the onboard SSD all together and boot directly off the thunderbolt 4 enclosure. That way when time comes to replace it I have that option. I do note that this will cause somewhat of a performance hit. but is it even possible?

[Obioban]

Yes:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/03/how-to-boot-an-apple-silicon-mac-from-an-external-drive

 

but at 16tb of writes a month, the internal 256gb drive will cycle out in ~93 years (and each doubling of internal drive capacity will ~double that life span).

[BobVonBob]

From what I've seen it's generally a hassle and it doesn't work reliably with every enclosure, but it is possible. That being said, it might be preferable to change your editing software's storage locations instead. Since you're using a Mac I'm going to guess you're using Final Cut Pro, and there are instructions for moving its storage locations here. You can find similar instructions for other software.

[Obioban]

That’s also true— much smoother and faster to boot from the internal volume and edit with footage on an external volume.

[Kilrah]

It is possible, but as mentioned it's probably metter and easier to run the OS from the internal drive as intended and just store your data on the external drive. 

 

2 hours ago, Obioban said:

but at 16tb of writes a month, the internal 256gb drive will cycle out in ~93 years

That would be ~18PBW, where did you find specs showing that? That would be orders of magnitudes than even enterprise grade SSDs. No way the SSD in a Mac does this.

Consumer drives are typically in the range of 100-500TBW, which would be about 6 months to 3 years at OP's use. 

[Obioban]

40 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

It is possible, but as mentioned it's probably metter and easier to run the OS from the internal drive as intended and just store your data on the external drive. 

 

That would be ~18PBW, where did you find specs showing that? That would be orders of magnitudes than even enterprise grade SSDs. No way the SSD in a Mac does this.

Consumer drives are typically in the range of 100-500TBW, which would be about 6 months to 3 years at OP's use. 

You are correct— my brain auto corrected to gb, and I calculated accordingly.

 

I’d edit on an external and boot from/run apps on the internal.

 

…. what’s the work flow that’s 12-16 tb per month, out of curiosity?

[Kilrah]

6 hours ago, Obioban said:

…. what’s the work flow that’s 12-16 tb per month, out of curiosity?

 

9 hours ago, Sagecrumpton said:

video editing workstation

 

[Obioban]

Feels like you’d want more power than the ultrabook/consumer focused M1 for that much video. Might be better matched to mac studio

(or at least wait for the M2 mini, with the significantly improved media engine, and probably an M2 Pro based Mac mini option)

 

But, yeah, with the mini— boot from internal, use working files off external. I'd suggest getting this for $79:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB3ENVXP00/

And adding your NVMe M.2 2280 SSD of choice.

(or, with the quantity of data you're talking about, getting two of those and RAID 0ing them)

[Brian McKee]

5 hours ago, Obioban said:

Feels like you’d want more power than the ultrabook/consumer focused M1 for that much video. Might be better matched to mac studio

(or at least wait for the M2 mini, with the significantly improved media engine, and probably an M2 Pro based Mac mini option)

Neither the mac studio nor the m2 are that much better (sometimes not at all) for video editing workloads. There's also no guarantee that the mac mini will be updated any time soon since they tend to have much longer refresh cycles.

 

Once you move up to mac studio pricing you also have insane mobile workstations that will compete with it and allow for greater flexibility as well.

[Obioban]

1 hour ago, Brian McKee said:

Neither the mac studio nor the m2 are that much better (sometimes not at all) for video editing workloads. There's also no guarantee that the mac mini will be updated any time soon since they tend to have much longer refresh cycles.

 

Once you move up to mac studio pricing you also have insane mobile workstations that will compete with it and allow for greater flexibility as well.

The M2 is a reasonably significant upgrade for video editing-- it has a higher-bandwidth video decoder for the media engine that supports 8K H.264 and HEVC video. It can also now play back multiple streams of 4K/8K video using the ProRes video engine.

 

[Brian McKee]

1 minute ago, Obioban said:

The M2 is a reasonably significant upgrade for video editing-- it has a higher-bandwidth video decoder for the media engine that supports 8K H.264 and HEVC video. You can also now play back multiple streams of 4K/8K video using the ProRes video engine.

 

My work flows would see much less of a difference than even that, and none with the actual editing. I never work with 8k footage and I assume most others don't either.

[Obioban]

4 minutes ago, Brian McKee said:

My work flows would see much less of a difference than even that, and none with the actual editing. I never work with 8k footage and I assume most others don't either.

Even in a 4k workflow, more simultaneous streams.

 

An M2 Mini is almost certainly coming soon-- the M1 Mini came out 625 days ago, and the average between updates is 634 days-- an average that is skewed up by one particularly egregious cycle (1475 days). The M2 should be more or less drop in. T

 

... I would not buy a Mini today if it's possible to wait till September.

[Brian McKee]

Just now, Obioban said:

Even in a 4k workflow, more simultaneous streams.

 

An M2 Mini is almost certainly coming soon-- the M1 Mini came out 625 days ago, and the average between updates is 634 days-- an average that is skewed up by one particularly egregious cycle (1475 days). The M2 should be more or less drop in.

 

... I would not buy a Mini today if it's possible to wait till September.

If the mini is anything like the m2 air it's probably not worth waiting since you will need to upgrade the storage to not get insane slowdowns. The m1 mini is probably the best value editing rig you could realistically buy.

[Obioban]

3 minutes ago, Brian McKee said:

If the mini is anything like the m2 air it's probably not worth waiting since you will need to upgrade the storage to not get insane slowdowns. The m1 mini is probably the best value editing rig you could realistically buy.

If you're editing off an external drive, that drive speed isn't going to affect you...

(and only exists if you get the base tier storage)

[Brian McKee]

6 minutes ago, Obioban said:

If you're editing off an external drive, that drive speed isn't going to affect you...

(and only exists if you get the base tier storage)

No it will impact you no matter what since the memory caching from ram to SSD is wicked slow on the base storage M2s.

[Obioban]

23 minutes ago, Brian McKee said:

No it will impact you no matter what since the memory caching from ram to SSD is wicked slow on the base storage M2s.

I feel like your workload and machines aren't matching. 12-16tb of video per month, and you're wanting to edit it using a 2 year old consumer/ultrabook processor.

 

Perhaps the base storage tier of a 2 year old product, that's the cheapest computer Apple makes, is not the ideal tool for the job.

 

Call me crazy.

[Kilrah]

24 minutes ago, Obioban said:

I feel like your workload and machines aren't matching. 12-16tb of video per month, and you're wanting to edit it using a 2 year old consumer/ultrabook processor.

Not the same person.

 

@Brian McKee is kinda ignoring the fact that OP having mentioned those storage requirements likely puts them in the category that could benefit from the improved video stuff.